More'n twenty years have passed, since we learned that awful news 'bout Billy's death
Rumors haunt Carroll County, when they're spoken, folks hold their breath
Mabel Reynolds told Sue Brown, and asked her, "Please do not repeat"
But that's like givin' children candy..tellin' them "Here look, but you can't eat"
The rumor tells about that terr'ble morning up on Choctaw Ridge
They say, Billy Joe survived when he jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge..

Who knows how it got started, but a thing like that can spread like fleas,
Like Kennedy, and the talk of how he died, those conspiracies..
Each time it's passed around, someone else adds a little more, somehow,
Till it's hard to figure out what is the real true story, now
Doesn't make a lick a' sense, like the stub tail on our dog, Midge
They say, Billy Joe survived the jump that day off Tallahatchie Bridge..

Word is he wandered out to L.A. - caught a Greyhound from the next town square
Found a job pickin' oranges, 'cuz he didn't wanna deal with daddy care,
And he really wasn't homosexual, like the other rumors always said
He just thought things would be better if the town and everybody thought him dead
They say cousin, Ezra got a letter postmarked L.A. on the edge,
So, it would seem that Billy Joe survived the Tallahatchie Bridge..

Well, a brand new chapter's just been added to the story, now
Heard the latest from John Miller, as he rested on his garden plow
It seems, that Billy Joe's son, Lester, traveled out California way
Met face to face with Billy, just last Sunday, on the fourth of May,
Told him flat, how he felt about his deadbeat dad, with no parent pledge
And how ashamed he was of his desertion at the Tallahatchie Bridge

Turned on the tv, last night, heard more local news 'bout Billy Joe,
The story's not just a rumor, on channel four from Tupelo
It said that Billy Joe returned, cuz' he'd felt the truth from Lester sting
No one knows just what transpired, but sometimes, the bells of fate will ring
Someone phoned the rescue squad, they'd seen somethin' up on Choctaw Ridge
That's when they found Lester's body underneath the Tallahatchie Bridge..

They found Lester's body in the water 'neath the Tallahatchie Bridge